The present disclosure relates generally to aircraft traffic management, and more specifically, to systems and methods for computing a predicted flight trajectory for an aircraft.
In this section, characteristics of so-called “known” trajectory predictors are described. The adjective “known” is used to indicate prior art features known to one or more authors of this disclosure and should not be construed to be a representation concerning any prior art teachings not known to the authors.
Known trajectory predictors operate with the limitations of requiring an aircraft performance database to calculate a trajectory. The aircraft performance database itself can present limitations where content is limited or access to the information is limited. Additionally, the accuracy of known trajectory predictors can be inadequate. Some known trajectory predictors do not apply in situ and forecasted environmental conditions to trajectory prediction. Those trajectory predictors which apply environmental conditions typically use forecasted, not current environmental data. Some on-board flight plan systems have the capability to add environmental conditions to their predicted trajectories, but lack a database of current and forecasted environmental conditions. They may be provided a set of forecasted environmental conditions, but often that set is or will be outdated during the flight. Other trajectory predictors do not include knowledge systems to compile and manage data histories or monitor situational awareness of its own functions as evolving patterns for internal or external function use.
Thus the accuracy of known trajectory predictors is inadequate at least for the following reasons: (a) the users do not use current aircraft messaging, histories and state data; (b) users only use forecasted environmental data (current environmental observations are not incorporated); and (c) users do not know or anticipate all the pseudo-waypoints associated with a flight. Another distinguishing characteristic is that known trajectory predictors do not have the ability to adapt the output trajectory (e.g., by varying its fidelity) based on the input data.
Current trajectories predicted by ground systems are incomplete not only because the flight plan information they are built upon is incomplete, but also because they do not include pseudo-waypoints and associated metadata information, which omission affects the accuracy of the trajectory prediction. Pseudo-waypoints help complete the flight plan. A sequence of waypoints in a flight plan define the lateral projection of the flight route, but do not reflect more gradual transitions between the straight segments connecting waypoints. These gradual transitions entail changes of flight constraints at specific locations termed pseudo-waypoints which are neither listed in the flight plan nor stored in a navigation database.
Additionally, none of the trajectory metadata information (such as up-to-date weather information) is used dynamically by ground stations for optimizing flight operations. The fidelity of environmental data applied to current airborne on-board computer predictions and ground station applications is restricted by current methods. Without an accurate current flight trajectory prediction, environmental conditions processors do not know at what predicted locations or at what times to provide which environmental conditions data. Accuracy is lost for this reason and gained when appropriate environmental data is applied to the trajectory prediction.
To overcome these shortcomings, current solutions place the burden on the source to transmit its representation of the entire trajectory. These solutions do not address the accuracy issues of replicating the source trajectory nor is it desirable to do so due to the associated communication cost and the additional burden the increased messaging places on an already congested frequency.
An adaptive solution is needed that may resemble the originating source format or is based on user configuration declarations, flight parameters, or aircraft state information histories compiled and managed by an embedded knowledge system. Preferably, this solution should operate without an aircraft performance database and should address the accuracy of the trajectory prediction with other methods. Also, the solution must be able to produce multiple outputs (e.g., of varying fidelity) from the same source. Specifically, flight information is received and multiple trajectories are requested as the final output. The reason for this is that each customer has their own trajectory specification requirements. The solution must also ascertain the level of confidence or accuracy that the trajectory predictions must comply with to meet user requirements.